VIDEO: Lady Sand Sharks make softball debut

Wednesday

"I know the girlie stuff," she said after tossing the ceremonial first pitch Saturday and launching the inaugural season for the Lady Sand Sharks softball team.

Two weeks ago, Upshaw threw out the opening pitch for the fourth season of baseball at the University of South Carolina Beaufort. It was in the dirt.

But Saturday the chancellor fired a strike as the softball team hit the field on a day of "firsts."

Kristy Cook notched the first win for the Lady Sand Sharks with authority, throwing a no-hitter at the visiting Wesleyan Lady Pioneers from Macon, Ga.

USCB was in the win column as a team with a 16-0 decision in a game called after five innings by the NAIA "mercy rule." The Lady Sand Sharks followed up with a 21-1 win in the second game of the opening day doubleheader.

Some of the Lady Sand Sharks predicted last week that they'd be a strong team at the plate and it didn't take long to make that happen.

Katie Rietkovich hit the first home run in USCB softball history, a shot that cleared the "second fence" at 250 feet. It was one of 14 hits for the Lady Sand Sharks in the first game, including three apiece by Rietkovich and Chelsey Blasingame.

USCB followed up with 14 more hits in the second game, including the first-ever grand slam by Rebekah Herty.

Herty, of Hilton Head Island, said at first she didn't realize the ball cleared the fence.

"I was in the moment. I heard coach yelling, "Go ball go," and then I heard my teammates yelling and I knew then it was gone," Herty said.

A crowd of 300 fans braved cold, windy weather at the Richard Gray Sports Complex in Hardeeville for the historic softball opener and a simultaneous baseball doubleheader between USCB and Milligan College of Johnson City, Tenn. The baseball team also swept both games.

The "quadruple header" created the kind of excitement Upshaw likes to see at the small-but-growing satellite school.

The chancellor said the nine athletic teams add to the campus flavor at the USCB campus off U.S. 278.

"It's wonderful to have women's athletic teams, too," Upshaw said.

"I get to know lots of them (the athletes). With 1,874 students, you get a chance to get to know all of them," she said. "They don't hesitate to come up a speak. It's that kind of campus."

Upshaw is especially proud that the softball team recorded the highest grade-point average of any USCB athletic team after the fall semester.

"It's a testament to their coaches," she said. "They get the message across that the classroom is important - it's about the rest of their lives."

The Sun Conference named Cook and Rietkovich as pitcher and player of the week after Saturday's performances. The honors are voted on by conference sports information directors.

Cook, a freshman right-hander from Brooks, Ga., struck out 12 in the debut game. She allowed only one base runner, who reached on an error.

Rietkovich was 4-for-4 with a double, a homer and 7 RBIs in the doubleheader.

The Lady Sand Sharks return to the field this weekend, hosting Fisher (Mass.) College in a four-game series. Doubleheaders begin at 11 a.m. Saturday and noon Sunday at the Richard Gray Sports Complex behind the Hardeeville City Hall.

A list of "firsts" from the first two games of USC Beaufort's inaugural softball season Saturday:

• First pitch: Kristy Cook

• First strikeout: Kristy Cook

• First win: Kristy Cook

• First shutout: Kristy Cook

• First no-Hitter: Kristy Cook

• First hit: Sammi Shaffren

• First run: Sammi Shaffren

• First RBI: Shelby Zipperer

• First double: Shelby Zipperer

vFirst triple: Chelsey Blasingame

• First home run: Katie Rietkovich

• First grand slam: Rebekah Herty

• First stolen base: Sammi Shaffren

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